Contract analytics are now a staple of the legal industry. Driven by continuing advances in artificial intelligence ("AI"), contract analytics has changed the way the legal industry thinks and works. It is no longer a question of when the disruption will arrive, but when the legal industry will reach a "tipping point" of growth and development. This will naturally result from multiple legal-tech advances, driven by contract analytics, as well as related technologies, that exert pressure on how legal pros work, which are coming together to create a bigger cumulative effect. While much of this is hard to predict, the tipping point is coming into sharper focus every day.

Seal Software has released the latest version of its AI-based contract analytics platform, Seal 7. Version 7 of the Seal contract analytics software provides a simplified user interface and more AI capabilities, according to the vendor. Designed for enterprises, Seal 7 aims to simplify the contract analytics process so that business, legal and technical users alike can understand and manage risks, obligations and opportunities within their contracts. Updates to Seal's contract analytics software include an updated search and review interface and a slew of technological upgrades. Seal 7's AI-powered search feature utilizes machine learning and natural language processing in two mental models -- "Click-n-go" with guided search and an advanced user model -- so all users, from consumer-level workers to high-level professionals, can access contractual data without formal contract information requests. By cutting out the middleman -- often teams of attorneys -- and inevitable waiting periods for a response, this upgrade will reduce costs of operation and save time, according to the vendor.

US-based legal AI pioneer, Seal Software, has been named a'Cool Vendor' for 2018 by influential global research company Gartner. Last year, another pioneering legal AI company, Neota Logic, was also named as a cool vendor by Gartner, an accolade that is much-valued by companies of all types around the world. The title was given via a Gartner report that evaluates'interesting, new and innovative vendors in the content services market'. Ulf Zetterberg, co-founder and CEO of Seal Software, said: 'It is an honour to be named a Gartner Cool Vendor. As the world's largest research and advisory firm Gartner is highly respected for its razor sharp anaylsis and advice, so it is extremely pleasing for Seal to be recognized in this report.'

Your organisation is wasting money. Hard-earned money that could be spent on other things. Your procurement and commercial teams spend hours negotiating the pricing components of your supplier contracts. However, once those contracts are signed, where do they go? You might proactively manage your top 20 suppliers pretty tightly, but the rest of these contracts probably languish in your "repository".

In this special guest feature, Kevin Gidney, Co-Founder and CTO at Seal Software, explores four main factors that go into creating advanced machine learning technology. There is a lot of required training and work that goes into developing successful machine learning solutions and not all ML is created equal. Kevin, a founder of Seal Software, has held various senior technical positions within Legato, EMC, Kazeon, Iptor and Open Text. His roles have included management, solutions architecture and technical pre-sales, with a background in electronics and computer engineering, applied to both software and hardware solutions. It's no secret that machine learning is dominating the enterprise, across a wide variety of industries.

Ulf Zetterberg, CEO of Seal Software – the contract discovery and analytics start-up that was founded in Europe in 2010, before Ulf relocated the company's top brass to Silicon Valley – declares himself mystified by the sheer volume of paper-based communication he receives on a daily basis in the States. "Every week, a small bible's worth of paper goes into my recycling bin," he told me last week. "Why do companies still feel the need to communicate in this way?" In today's business environment, a company that is unable to manage its affairs electronically without resorting to a paper trail can come across as disorganised and lacking faith in its own technology. This, in fact, is one of the major pain points that Seal Software was founded to solve.

When contracts need to be reviewed, renewed or revised, the process tends to be labor intensive and time consuming. Contract delivery and analytics specialist Seal Software is launching version 5.0 of its contract analysis software, which uses machine learning to speed up the process. It also includes a new add-in which allows contract data extraction and review capabilities to be used within Microsoft Word. Analyze This Now (ATN) pulls existing contracts directly into Word, converting all documents -- including PDF and TIFF images -- into MS Word format. From there, business users can review text, update terms, change metrics, and create new versions all within their familiar Word interface. With ATN, the Seal platform is running in the background, analyzing the text and showing users the status of clauses and provisions using color-coded shading for clear visibility.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today Seal Software unveiled a new version of its leading contract discovery and analytics solution: Version 5.0. The new version introduces "Analyze This Now" (ATN), an add-in for Microsoft Word that allows business users to leverage Seal's powerful contract data extraction and review capabilities from within the familiar MS Word interface in order to shorten contact cycle times, reduce risk and lower processing costs. The release also extends Seal's machine learning framework and interface so Seal's technology can be used by business users to train the system for complex data extractions, improving extraction speed, accuracy and shortening time-to-value. "Seal Version 5.0 was developed with business users in mind, allowing them to easily harness the power of Seal without extensive education or resources. We want those closest to the business objectives in procurement, legal, M&A, and sales to use our system without extensive training and data management skills," said Ulf Zetterberg, co-founder and CEO of Seal Software.

Seal Software announced today that its first meetup session on advanced concepts in Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) was a huge success, with additional sessions being scheduled to meet high attendance demand. The meetup, led by Seal's ML team based in Gothenburg, Sweden, was designed to assemble some of the best minds in ML, describe and explore the newest techniques in the field, and help cultivate the next generation of advancements in this area. Interest in the meetup was also driven by Seal's strong ties to Chalmers University in Gothenburg, a leading technology center in the advancement of data science. The meetup was met with overwhelmingly high demand, with more than twice the number of registrants that could be accommodated. Because of this, Seal plans to schedule additional sessions in order to open the discussion to all community members interested in advanced technology.